Universities may be obliged to compete for funds, says Bruton

Universities could be asked to compete against each other for funds to provide courses to meet skills shortages under changes being considered by Minister for Education Richard Bruton.

He said a “competitive tendering model” and other incentives could be developed to encourage further responses to skills shortages.

The Minister added that close co-operation with industry will be vital and the sector needed to invest much more in the education system. "We've had this real problem of how do you make sure the education system and enterprise system are engaged in a more purposeful way," he told The Irish Times.

Role for industry

“It’s not all one-way traffic: industry has failed in its commitments. It doesn’t have a tradition of investing in training and apprenticeships that other countries have. We really have to enforce that bridge from both sides: getting education to reach out more in terms of curriculum shaping, trying to create placement opportunities; and enterprise has to meet it half-way . . .”

The proposals are likely to be controversial in some quarters, given that many academics feel the education sector is already too close to industry.

Mr Bruton, however, said a tendering model may not need to be confined to meeting skills needs, but could also be used to explore ways of increasing participation rates from disadvantaged areas.

Springboard initiative

He made the comments following the launch of the latest Springboard initiative, which provides thousands of free third-level courses to jobseekers. Under this project, managed by the Higher Education Authority, colleges compete to provide courses which range from higher-certificate to honours-degree level.

This year, 5,825 full- and part-time courses will be available across 36 educational institutions under the programme. Almost half the places are on ICT courses, followed by entrepreneurship, international financial services and manufacturing. Culinary skills is a new addition.

“This initiative embodies the core ambition set out earlier in the year in the National Skills Strategy: to ensure that we have a system that is flexible,” he said.Mr Bruton accepted there was a “funding crisis” facing third level and parties will meet shortly to discuss ways of tackling it

A report to be published soon on the future of third-level funding will lean heavily on an income-contingent loan scheme as the only realistic option of funding.